2008-11-29

Expectations can be double edged swords. What we expect from ourselves, from others, from work, from relationships - expectations can make us push the boundaries when things are going well, but when things don't go according to plan, the burden of expectations weighing us down can make the emotional baggage much much heavier.

I've heard a few people say - me included - that maybe if we didn't have any expectations to begin with then the disappointment would be much less if matters went south. It would be much easier to pick oneself up, dust off the disappointment and rejoin the game, so to say. The 'burden of expectations' plays a large factor in the negative criticism sportspersons face when they hit a bad patch and we've all seen this repeated ad infinitum with different protagonists. Does the same apply for personal expectations? Is it better to set goals and go about achieving them - getting crushed by disappointment once in a while or go about things one day at a time and just revel in the moment. Not having a lot of expectations before embarking on a task makes it much easier to recover from failure - that I can attest personally. But the very cause of low expectations was that the chance of sucess was very low in the first place. What about matters which are perceived to be easy, everyday things, where anyone has the chance to succeed. Is it easy to brush off failure then? Is it a good attitude to begin every journey with no expectation of outcome?

Its hard to put things in black and white so easily, and even more so when others are invested in your success and failures, or even when there is an audience watching (or you feel is watching). However, sometimes taking a step back and seeing what is really happenening is a eye opener of sorts.

Am I doing this because I want to or because I am expected to? is a question I have to ask myself a lot over the coming days.

2008-11-27

President Pratibha Patil, Vice President Hamid Ansari and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh have strongly condemned the deadly terror attacks in Mumbai and asked people to maintain calm.

"Such acts are highly condemnable," the President, who is on a four-day visit to Vietnam, said in a statement from Hanoi today....Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, while condemning the terror attacks last night, assured all help to Maharashtra in meeting the situation.

Well, nice to see they have done what we elected them to do. Oh, wait. We didn't. Sorry.

2008-11-25

Captain Slow loses his track test virginity on a Zonda-F Roadster!The Veyron shows once again what is speed and what is speed... but only in a straight line.A race with a difference and yet again the Jag Diesel (yay India!) shines. Why does one need a Prius with an EPA est. 48mpg when there is a twin turbo V6 giving 44(53UK) mpg or a Bluemotion with 66(80UK) mpg.

But there was something that showed me the hosts of a show with an estimated 385 million viewers have their feet firmly on the ground. James May with the same shirt he wore on the convertible people carrier episode, two and half years ago. (I only noticed it because it was pink and purple!)

2008-11-21

It happens suddenly. One moment your life is going on as it does, you think it could not possibly get worse. So obviously it does. Perhaps there is a rule somewhere that fate adheres to. Of striking you when the chips are down.

Its things like these that drive a person over the edge. You imagine human beings as resilient creatures, with deep reserves of patience and perseverance but it takes one little incident to throw that picture out of the window.

Especially when this has happened to you before - at one time, twice in a month - you begin to think that fate has nothing to do with it. "Its my fault", says your subconscious but you don't want to believe it. You know it just happened. But did it?

These are things you keep to yourself. No one talks about it. Its never out in the open. You just carry on like nothing has happened and smile and bob your head. But for what? Why this pretense?

I wish these things would never happen to anybody.

Because its really very annoying when one side of the headphones dies on you.

2008-11-14

During school days, summer vacations broadly fell into two categories, ones where you would be busier than Gordon Gecko shuffling from one camp to some class or ones where you would catch an afternoon nap listening to Grandmother's stories. While I didn't exactly listen to stories in the later years, my vacations did follow the second track more or less faithfully. Lazy, relaxed and yes, filled with books. In fact, there was a bookstore near our house which had a small library in the back. I finished that one year. Admittedly I gave the M&Bs a wide berth but otherwise all the books that a 12 year old might read were devoured in no time. It took little for boredom to set in again. I experimented with picking up the World Book Encyclopaedia and reading entries at random but that lost its appeal much too soon.

Then one day I discovered what was hidden behind the World Books. Let me explain. The bookcase in which the World Books were stored initially had started life as a display cabinet and was far too deep. It was built into the wall and as such there was no way to estimate its depth from the outside. Hence there was a stash of books neatly lined up behind the display books, no doubt kept there by my mom who hates clutter and who must have patted herself on the back for thinking of this clever hiding place. Before the suspense gets to you, let me emphasize that I hadn't discovered a Marilyn Monroe edition of Playboy. I must also warn you that all this reminiscing is a build up to a rant (I do seem to do that often, don't I?).

You see, what I had discovered behind the encyclopaedia were old issues of Readers' Digest. Issues going back to 1973. It was this treasure trove that kept me entertained for many days after that. Not just summer vacations, but these issues became regular reading and there was a time when there used to be at least 3-4 of these under my pillow. As far as I could remember, we had had a subscription to RD. But there was something about those issues, maybe what one would call timelessness, that retained their readability 20 years past the date on the cover.

Sadly, I think they have lost it. And it hasn't happened today, its been happening over the past couple of years - ever since they redesigned it and it became worse when taken over by the India Today Group. The 'Win 17 kgs of gold' gimmick just re-enforced the down-the-drain feeling. Not surprisingly, the American Edition displays an even lower expectation of what constitutes a 'Reader'. The issues I have been reading for about 6 months are barely one third the thickness of the childhood ones but seem to have atleast five times as many advertisements.

Its a sign of our times perhaps that we see articles like '10 ways to...' and '5 things that...' in here, a publication that is (I suppose) aimed at the somewhat discerning reader. If I want to read articles like these, there are always those magazines at the supermarket checkout counter. Where are the human interest stories? Where is Drama in Real Life?

In fact, the whole redesign is very picture and graphic oriented which is totally unnecessary in my opinion. It is looks like a presentation, full of bullets and list and large fonts where you try to cover up the lack of material with every clip art in your collection. Due to the large number of advertisements, and obviously advertisements are full of pictures and color and large fonts jumping out at you, sometimes an article gets lost in all that clutter. Its not that hard to miss an article which uses the same sort of stock images of people doing the same kind of everyday activity portrayed in advertisements. Frankly, it looks like the management types have taken over everything, and ruined it in the process.

My last point may be a very small one but it is one which annoys me no end. A business reply post-card stuck in it after every few pages makes it impossible to hold the spine in one hand and flip the pages. Trivial, I know, but its the small things that make a difference.

I guess I will have to stick to the dusty yellowed pages for my reading pleasure. Old is truly Gold.

...in school he was listed under 'apparatus' for 'Radiation of black body' experiment.

...when he goes for an X-ray, they have to use white film.

...when he was small, his mother used talcum powder for the 'tika' so that 'drishta lagnaar nahi'.

...his sunscreen is -40 SPF.

...his shadow gets embarrassed in his presence.

...he stars in the new Hollywood flick, 'Opaque Man'.

...he calls himself 'Mr. India' at night.

...blacks call him 'coloured'.

...he makes carbon paper by wiping his face on tissues.

...Osama is thinking of using him to defeat face recognition technology.

...first God said, "Let there be light", and there was light. Then God said, "Let there be darkness." And MMJ was created.

...when he directs a movie, the credits will say, M. 'Night' Jadhav

...when he tried Xeroxing his butt, the machine ran out of toner.

...when he wore torn pants to school, the kids asked him why he had sat in tar.

...when MMJ was created God said, "Shit!!, Jal Gaya!!"

...when he grins, it is like chicklets floating in the air.

...he was the CIA's most successful shadow operative...until he was posted to Alaska.

...he offered to work naked for MIB.

...when he was disowned by his relatives, they called him 'the white sheep of the family'.

...when he returns after a long hiatus, he says he is, 'back in black'

...he did so much proxy voting last time, they had to make provision for eraz-ex at his polling booth.

..he leaves fingerprints on charcoal.

...when he goes to Cafe Coffee Day, it becomes Cafe Coffee Night.

...he is stopped by the cops for wearing black visor helmet.

...Iron Maiden were so scared of him, they wrote 'Fear of the Dark'.

...when he appears on TV it goes out of sync. [!! - nerdy]

...when feminist groups protest about his behaviour, they whiten his face with neutral polish.

This list was born in a very dull and largely silent System Programming class and achieved minor fame over the next few days as people vented their frustration at the protagonist and his (evil) ways. However, me and Akshay possessed the largest list of complaints since he happened to be our final year project guide.

2008-11-11

Much has been said and written about the apathy of youth. They don't care about their country, couldn't be bothered about the environment and have an atrocious taste in music. I know, I am one of them. To be honest, I agree with points #1 and 3 (Linkin Park? really?) but point #2 has me thinking. Albeit involuntarily, the youth do contribute to saving the environment.

I mean, back in the day it wasn't a pressing need to save the environment that made us share a ride to college but a simple desire to maximise canteen money while keeping the loss of mobility to a minimum. And The Bong must have really been the scraping the bottom of the proverbial barrel when he agreed to sit behind me, when we did the 15 min record dash from SCOE to Parihar Chowk on my Kinetic, arriving cleanly shaven and white knuckled. Then there are books. In school, for every subject we had a classwork notebook, a homework notebook and a composition notebook, plus about a dozen textbooks and a calendar. In engineering college it came down to one notebook - if that and textbooks which one invariably bought second hand (always buy one owned by a girl because they highlight all the important stuff). Reduce and recycle. In four years of engineering I alone must have saved about an acre of rainforest.

Which brings me to the one subject for which I had made a separate notebook. One subject which I did not ever bunk and could always be seen frantically taking notes. I paid so much attention that for once the 50 guys out-attentioned the 3 girls in class. If someone tapped my shoulder to say something I would get pissed off and give them dirty looks. And joy of joys! The fruit of my labour is not lost as I had feared. Apparently it survived the transcription into a word document, 3 different computers and a couple of DVD burns, as I found the small folder hidden in forgotten backup folder on my external drive.

So here I present, once again, the best of PSP

Certain amount of work done is done

Whatever amount of grasping here is to be reproduced at the time of exam

In Poona there is certain amount of height difference is there

We are sending letters to parents for safer side of ours

Always we are preparing substraction (sic) between these two values

Whenever we have addition certain amount of contradiction we are getting

In practice we are having atmosphere acting on surface of earth

Whatever amount of pipe connection is there, at bottom we are getting connection

The liquid flowing may be of liquid state or it may be of various gases or it may be of liquid state

This is the law of zeroth law of thermodynamics

Whatever amount of heat addition is there that amount of utilisation is there if no other lossesses are there

Can you have calculators

If you touch coil you are getting much more hotter on the inside

Whatever amount of airs from both sides are there are kept as it is

We are having certainly a amount of work done to be done in this

This the law of ENERGY OF CONSERVATION

In book also certain amount of jumbling is there

Certain persons are thinking in fashion that I want a work but I am not spending energy

Machines are drived by a single engine

Initially I had not said anything; Lastly question paper is given

Whatever amount of matter is flowing through it that is flowing through entire system

Power is morely transmitted

With the help of certain amount of hammer we are hammering on it

We are having certain amount of jamming, so not to happen it, we are giving certain amount of taper on it

We are preparing certain amount of section on this tooth which is called as tooth

These tooths are certainly inclined so that contacting area is certainly increased

One more important another is there

Thirdly, number Fourth, Heat exchanger

Today, class is of full of strength

Fire tube boilers are generated to 25 bar

Don't jumble in between fire tube and water tube

When they are preparing cream and other arrangement in milk industry

Rope is (a) belt of round configuration

There are certain amount of advantages over disadvantages

(who would have thought that a lecture about friction and ways to reduce it would degenerate into eroticism)

Two muffs are separated in two separate halves

We are having a bush and in the soft material we are inserting the shaft

In between the shaft the balls are placed

We want to press the balls on the shaft

For the record, the subject was Elements of Mechanical Engineering (EME). A subject which proved quite entertaining all the way to the end of the exam and the ride home, thanks to The Bong - a story for another time.

2008-11-10

Like most of you, I prefer to have some music playing in the background when I am working. But then, sometimes I get bored of all the songs I have on the laptop and Pandora plays the same thing over and over again and the radio has ads for Mahindra tractors (true!).

Then, I put on some movie which just plays in the background while I go about my way. Goes without saying that the movie must not be thought provoking or engaging or nice in any way. Basically it must be unwatchable. Enter Bollywood.

Oh how I was mistaken!!!

OK.. so I filled in some thought bubbles but the first 2 frames are true. I swear!

"We came wondering if America had finally made a car that might actually work in the civilized world. The answer is no, they haven't. As you can see from our smiles, they've made three."

The civilized world can now get ready to welcome the '09 Corvette ZR1, '08 Dodge Challenger SRT8 and the '09 Cadillac CTS-V into its midst. Provided of course that their parent companies manage to make it to the middle of next year.

But more importantly, Top Gear liking not one but three American cars! At the same time! Change has truly come to America.

2008-11-08

According to WHO data, the average life expectancy of the Indian male is 62 years. Which means 39.5% of my life is over. Gone. Of course, if the genes I have inherited play their role, it could be lower than 30%. Which is a small relief - yes, but it does nothing to dispel that feeling of 'what have I done so far!'. People my age have won a F1 championship, bagged a Nobel Prize in Physics, started billion dollar companies and committed genocide. Some are even getting married. [shudder] . The point is - people lead exciting lives. Mine has about as much excitement as wallpaper paste and the future prospects are of a similar texture and consistency.

But it is heartening to see that while you may have a very low opinion of yourself there are people who prop you up, add a little chaat masala to your bland life. I refer of course, to the dewd, whose probing questions about my personal life make me feel like a celebrity on a colonoscopy table. Sure, most of these questions are related to the mystery surrounding the presence (or absence) of a female influence in my life. But hey, someone cares. And that is what matters. Plus, questions like 'when was the first time you held a girl's hand?' make you feel like its 3rd standard all over again. By WHO reckoning, that's just 13%. Which gives me plenty of time to practice my left foot braking and diffract X rays around crystals.

This post would have ended here if it wasn't for the fact that me and the dewd are so close that we are almost brothers. Which means my brother is his brother. Which means he is fair game.

Cartoon penned by Meera, who surprised me with this when I told her the tale and commented that she would do a good job of cartooning it. Which she has. She also turned out a solo one starring me but that is for another day.

An episode of How I Met Your Mother (4x02) has this impassioned speech by Marshall when they spend a whole evening running around to find the 'perfect' burger that Marshall had had eight years ago.

Just a Burger? Just a burger. Robin, it’s so much more than “just a burger”. I mean…that first bite—oh what heaven that first bite is! The bun like a sesame freckled breast of an angel resting gently on the ketchup and mustard below—flavors mingling in a seductive pas-de-deux And then…a pickle…the most playful little pickle! Then a slice of tomato, a leaf of lettuce and a…a patty of ground beef so exquisite; swirling in your mouth breaking apart and combining again in a fugue of sweets and savor so delightful. This is no mere sandwich of grilled meat and toasted bread, Robin: this is God…speaking to us in food.

While I later found out that it was lifted from Amadeus, obviously Salieri wasn't talking about burgers. The scene was great, balancing the comedic tone of the series with the poignant, passionate appeal of a man who has spent eight years looking for his long lost 'perfect' burger and is one hat-tip away. And we are shaken out of our reverie when Lily gets her riposte in

And you got our wedding vows off the internet..!

Me? I was thinking about the Tandoori Chicken at 'Toni Da Dhaba' back in the days when childhood (mine) was carefree and youth (parents') was forgiving. When driving half way to Lonavala in December to sit on a charpoy with a fire-in-a-drum nearby was not a big deal. Nothing has come close since. Has it been 8 years? Probably more....

2008-11-03

Before trying so hard to 'draw me out of my shell', did you pause for a moment and think that maybe that is how I am. I like it in my shell, thank you very much.

I am sorry I am not as ebullient and outgoing as you are, but we are not exactly stormtroopers in the clone army, are we?

I am sorry I don't share your enthusiasm about the music you listen to and the movies you watch and honestly, sometimes I don't even give a rat's ass about it. But I don't recall either of us conferring soulmate status on the other. Hell, I don't even recall conferring 'friend' status. So just let it go.

I am sorry I am not in the same league of 'coolness' or of the same wavelength as your old friends, but lets not pretend we are in this by choice. I feel your pain. But do I say it out loud every time? No.

When you ask me for my opinion on every bloody thing, and I just nod or say nothing, it doesn't mean I don't have an opinion. Trust me, I have an opinion on everything. But when I am silent, take it from me that it is not something you would want to hear.

I have a name. Its all very well adding '-ya' to someone's name to make it a nickname but do you really expect me to respond when you add it to my wireless SSID and address me by the concatenation?

Its ok if we are in the same room and there is silence for 10 minutes. Seriously, no pressure.

2008-11-02

On Halloween, I decided to tone down the scariness and get myself a haircut. I have been blessed by hair that is absolutely unmanageable when longer than 2 inches, which has been compared by my aunt to a nylon floor mat. And she was being nice. So getting a haircut is a chore that is not very tolerant to the usual procrastination.

And thus I found myself walking to the hair cutting place just outside campus at 5:30 on Friday. Weekends being sacrosanct in the land of the free, no self respecting establishment would be open. But the fact that it was after 5 in the evening made it quite possible that my long walk would be for nothing and I would have to plod my way back with the mop on my head intact.

Things turned out better than I hoped. The last time I had been there, they had been planning a renovation and it was complete. Very nice indeed. Apparently, in a bid to actually pay for those renovations, they had decided to keep the place open on weekends too (and raised prices by a dollar, but then who hasn't). But better than that, they were open till 6, which meant that I could potentially go home light headed and free. The problem was the two people in the chairs and the two people waiting their turn. But the guy told me not to worry, they'll close after finishing with me. So I waited my turn outside and spent that half hour in a most pleasant manner, something I had almost forgotten. But that is not where the tale is headed.

I must reveal at this point that the reason most guys go this certain place outside campus is the prospect of having Danielle run her fingers gently through your hair, which has its attractions. Sharply contrasting with the on-campus hairdresser where you face a Rastafarian guy attacking you with clippers while bhangra music plays in the background (I kid you not). Men who have never paid more than Rs. 20 for a haircut and are morally against all forms of tips have returned with gelled spiky hair, misty eyes and wallets a couple of dollars lighter than the necessary 15. The reason why Chandler mouthed 'Oh my God!' when Kathy was trimming his hair becomes crystal clear as the shampoo is gently but firmly massaged into your hair.

Among one of my many social failings is a total lack of the ability to make small talk with random people. This was no different. I sat there in stony silence while she went to work. Then out of the blue ....

D: So, you heading out to any Halloween party?

A: (surprised) Nah. No parties. Have work to do.

D: You are doing Electrical Engineering, aren't you?

A: (barely masking :-o) You remember me?

D: Of course I do.

A: (smug look coupled with usual loss of words)

(couple of minutes pass by)

A: How about you?

D: huh?

A: Are you going to any party?

D: Oh no... I'm going to stay at home, put out candy for the neighborhood kids.